Something to Ponder and Debate?

[davg2000]

I realize that the question is about which battle did the most to turn the tide against the Confederacy, and my vote goes to Antietam, a “non-loss” for the Union which allowed Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. That document prevented any serious possibility of foreign recognition of the South. And following that document, blacks began to be recruited. By the end of the Civil War, nearly 200,000 had served in the Union military.

But I think the one indispensable element is Grant, who is more important than any one battle. The Battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor cost the North nearly twice as many casualties as the South sustained. Yet Grant didn’t flinch. He was eventually able to cross the James River and maneuver Lee into the trenches at Petersburg. That, and the fact that Grant was willing to use the men Lee didn’t have, made all the difference.